


Ice Don't Burn

by locusinbloom (Fractual_Visions)



Category: Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Self-Harm, community: naughtylokiconfessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-07
Updated: 2014-05-07
Packaged: 2018-01-23 22:28:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1581701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fractual_Visions/pseuds/locusinbloom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a fill for the prompter who wanted self-harming!Loki with the reader offering comfort. Pretend Loki has revealed his kingship after the end of TDW.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ice Don't Burn

**Author's Note:**

> Done for the [Naughty Loki Confessions](http://naughtylokiconfessions.tumblr.com) blog of which I am a devoted follower.

Loki’s chambers in the palace were different to most. Darker, to start. Filled with half-hidden alcoves, places where even one possessed of no gift of illusion could vanish into shadows. Every surface was covered in the relics of his craft, a comfortable disarray. He suffered none to touch these, so they remained as he left them. Unlike the other masters’ chambers, where a cloak cast on the ground was expected the next morning to appear in its chest. Finally, it was a veritable garden of night flowers and lush ferns, every plant which thrived in dimness. They crawled on mantles, sprawled out of pots, grew up from troughs in the floor. They added to the obscurity a touch of being lost in the forest within each room.

You loved being in his chambers. That was likely the only reason you were among the handful of servants he even permitted in this sanctuary. His door had no lock on it. It was simply a Möbius strip to anyone he didn’t want to enter. They walked in the door only to find themselves on the other side walking out the way they came.

You balanced a tray piled high with meats, fruits, and vegetables on one hand. In the other, you carried a heavy pitcher brimming with wine.

Loki was already seated at his dining table. He had not taken food in the great hall in weeks, in fact, he rarely did. It seemed that assuming kingship had not broken that habit. Today he was particularly subdued, cast lethargically back with his face half hidden in his palm. He said nothing as you laid the repast and took your place kneeling discreetly behind his chair.

He picked at the spread with distinct lack of enthusiasm. An half an hour went by. Your knees were starting to ache a bit. A ringing clatter echoed through the room, as Loki swept every single thing from the table suddenly to the floor. You jumped, startled and dismayed.

Had it been any other master, you would have been pissed. With Loki, for whom you felt a special fondness, you felt troubled. His mood was strange, more so than usual. Some great matter weighed on him and it worried you to see.

You crawled to the mess and began your task of cleaning it up. From this angle, you saw the underside of his arms were covered in burns. He had not allowed them to heal and this only intensified your worry.

Without permission to address him, you were at a loss. Obviously, something must be done, but… you were forbidden to speak of anything seen in the private chambers of the masters and mistresses you served. And to whom could you take the tale? The head healer? She would never believe you. The palace steward? No, he would merely remind you of your place.

While you examined the burns from the corner of your eye—some dark purple and scarred over, some fresh and pink—Loki began to shift color. From pale to ice blue. Foreign markings appeared on his skin. He radiated cold. You had to bite your lip very hard to stay silent. It had been rumoured in the palace that Loki was not normal, was not the natural born son of Frigga. Some even said that he was of those monstrous creatures of Jötunheim. You had always taken them for envious gossips.

Now you knew the truth of it. You felt the first stirrings of fear. It was the sight of his hands which calmed you. These were the same hands you had seen on the pages of books and the rims of drinking horns. Clearly, frost giants were not the savages of legend, if one so gentle and wise as Loki came from their stock. You forced your limbs back into motion, dabbing up spilled wine with cloths from your belt.

It was because of your focus on his hands that you saw him conjure the flame in his right palm. It was a tiny thing, only a little larger than the light of a candle. He pressed it under his left arm and held it there, while drops of water spilled through his fingers and onto the floor.

The horror of it did not register at first. If he was holding fire, then whence came the water? Then you recalled the stories from your youth—that frost giants were carved out of living ice—and it all came together with sickening clarity. He was melting the skin from his arm. Why? The question ran through your shocked mind. Why would he do that to himself?

To lay hands on him uninvited was a penalty of twenty lashes. It warred inside your chest: a frantic urge to reach out and stop him; your own fear of pain and punishment.

You crawled to him and lowered your forehead as close to his foot as you dared. Where your hair brushed the skin, it froze into solid stands that snapped when they hit the floor.

"Oh." His voice sounded dull and unhappy. "I forgot about you."

He sighed. “What do you want?”

"Please. I pray that you stop. I cannot bear to see this."

"Then you are free to leave." His tone was cold, but without any passion to it.

Forty lashes for talking back… you had never received so many… it had been known to kill some…

To Hel with it! You could not allow this, even were it someone you did not love so much as Loki.

"No."

He did not call for the guards. He stared down at you with burning red eyes. You cringed back and felt like one who tries to comfort an injured tiger.

"You are afraid of me."

"Not enough to leave you to your pain."

He said nothing. His skin bled slowly back to pink. Fresh, ugly burns adorned the underside of the arm which held his hand contemplatively to his lips. You raised your hands slowly to his knees and stroked along his thighs in long, gentle movements. Your heart ran like a frightened hare. He said nothing, did not move. Perhaps he believed you meant to seduce him.

You did not intend a seduction. It was wrong for a servant to presume on a master’s body. It was wrong for a master to advantage himself of a servant. You had known these things since childhood.

Your hands were trembling as you reached for his breast. The tremor surprised you as you caught sight of it. Your mouth felt dry. Loki finally moved. Simply parted his legs to give you room. Your fingertips reached the messy strands of his hair and his arms closed around you. With his hands pressed firmly into the back of your ribcage, it felt only natural to lean back and allow him to draw you into his lap.

He was hard beneath your hip, but you made no mention and he seemed likewise disinclined to breach that last barrier of decency.

"You are not permitted to touch me, but decorum forbids me from holding you. Those are the rules, but I live to break rules. Do you know why?"

You answered unhesitatingly. “Because the rules were made to destroy creatures like you.”

He flinched and looked unbearably sad. He had not expected you to pierce to the heart of it so easily.

"Yes. I am a monster and fit only to be hunted as such."

"If monsters are men such as you," you murmured, "we have no need of heroes."

Loki studied you until you grew twitchy under his gaze. At last he brought a hand to your cheek and cupped it reverently.

"You are being sincere." His voice, you decided, should never sound that bewildered. "But why? You fear me and surely your station causes you to resent me. Why do you not revel in my pain as all others would?"

You licked your lips. “You are my king. You are wise and just; Asgard flourishes under your rule. What does it matter if you are carved from ice or made of soft flesh.”

"Not all feel as you do."

Your expression turned troubled. “I hear the rumours. People do not guard their tongues before servants.”

"Tell me."

You opened your mouth, then realised he had given you the perfect leverage. “Only if you agree to summon me when the desire to harm yourself comes upon you. Or I will not say a word.”

Loki’s hand darted for your neck, but changed course mid-motion. It settled awkwardly on your hair.

"I hardly need your information," he said.

"No. But for the price of a loyal spy in your service, is it really too much to give?" You pressed your nose into Loki’s neck. His hair brushed down over your eyes. "Please say yes."

"Yes."

Loki lips said this in a sweet smile that dripped with kindness and overwhelming trust. His eyes said this single word had been ripped from his throat like choking up broken glass. Between the two, you took the eyes for honest and ignored the lie. You reached for his arm, no longer as hesitant to touch, and drew it unresisting to your mouth. Your lips pressed to the burns. He hissed, but did not pull back.

"You are so beautiful," you murmured. "If only you could see yourself as I see you."

"If only you saw me as I really am," Loki countered.

"I see you, Loki." You dared the liberty of his name. "I see you and I am of that class of person from whom nobody hides. Not even you, my king. I have seen you and I say that you are beautiful."

"Perhaps," Loki said, noncommittally, but he did not dismiss you and he did not release you from his grasp, not until a few still and silent hours had passed.


End file.
